Kamala Harris on standby as Democrats plunge into panic mode

WASHINGTON - President Joe Biden's stumbling debate performance on Thursday night has led to some calls from his party to step aside, leaving his campaign in peril just weeks before he accepts the Democratic nomination.

It's also got party wags wondering how Kamala Harris, a former prosecutor, would do if she were handed the torch and faced-off with Donald Trump, the first former president ever to be both charged and then convicted of a crime.

If the 81-year-old Biden were to heed those calls, it would set the stage for his 59-year-old running mate to potentially become the first woman and woman of color to lead the nation.

Although questions of age and impairment have hounded Biden throughout the campaign, he has faced no real competition for the nomination. In Thursday's debate, Democrats wanted Biden to demonstrate that he had the vigor to serve a second term. Instead, they got rambling answers in a raspy voice, sentences that trailed off as if he lost his train of thought and repeated verbal flubs that Trump was able to capitalize on.  

Prominent Democrats quickly closed ranks around Biden, while the pundit and commentary world melted down demanding he step aside to make way for another candidate.

Michael Tyler, the president's campaign communications director, told reporters Friday that there is no talk happening inside the campaign about the calls for Biden to stand aside.

"There are no conversations about that whatsoever. The Democratic voters elected, nominated Joe Biden. Joe Biden is the Democratic nominee," Tyler said.

But Congressional lawmakers, and even Biden's Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, showed lukewarm support Friday, raising questions about who would be able to step in so late in the election process.

Former Iowa U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, himself a former presidential candidate, had some of the harshest criticism Friday of the president, saying the debate was “a disaster from which Biden cannot recover" and that Biden should release his delegates to support another candidate at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August.

“Stay the course. Chill out,” said Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., whose support was pivotal to Biden securing the nomination in 2020. “I’m a Biden-Harris person, so I’m not getting away from that. I’m for Biden-Harris. I’m going to be for Biden if Harris ain’t there and I’m going to be for Harris if Biden ain’t there," he said.

Harris as Biden's chief surrogate

Harris was the most vocal surrogate supporting Biden on Thursday night, appearing on multiple cable news shows to push back on the panic over his performance, repeatedly calling it a "slow start."

"I'm not going to spend all night with you talking about the last 90 minutes when I've been watching the last three and a half years of performance," she told CNN's Anderson Cooper when he asked if she had concerns after watching Biden.

After pivoting from MSNBC's Rachel Maddow's questions about Biden's performance to talk about women's reproductive rights, a topic Democrats want at the forefront of the campaign, Harris noted that Biden was the only candidate on the stage who is endorsed by their vice president.

That was a jab at the split between Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence after Pence refused Trump's request to halt Congress' certification of Biden's 2020 win.

Afterward Maddow said, "They need to start trusting Vice President Harris to cut her own path, because she does very, very well and the more you get of her the better it is."

During the first half of the administration, which began during the pandemic, Harris, like Biden, was largely out of public view, leaving Americans to form opinions of the vice president based on scripted virtual events. Voters questioned where the Harris they knew during her 2020 presidential campaign had gone or the one they knew as a senator, when she made her mark as a forceful and even combative progressive Democrat who asked tough questions and held people to account for their policies and positions even when they tried to dodge them.

VP visits in LA, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas

Harris has been intensely campaigning for months, making many of the expected retail politicking type stops, especially in swing states like Georgia and Nevada, that get less national media attention. On Friday she did campaign events in Los Angeles and Salt Lake City and spoke at an event aimed at Latino voters in Las Vegas.

At the Nevada event, a Biden campaign aide tried to end interviews when attendees began criticizing Biden and his debate performance, according to a White House pool report.

Democratic voter Amy Nelson said the debate was “terrible," the report said.“You can’t tell me that there’s not anyone better —” Nelson said of a candidate who could take Biden's place.Stephen Stubbs, an undecided voter at the event, criticized Biden’s “mental acuity.”“Who’s running the country?” Stubbs said of the presidential debate. “Let Kamala in!” he said of the possibility that Biden could step down and nominate Harris.

House Republicans, who have attempted for months to make Biden's age central to the campaign, on Friday floated calling on Biden's Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment and declare the Democratic incumbent unable to serve after his shaky debate performance, allowing Harris to assume the presidency. The 25th Amendment has never been invoked.

Newsom, Whitmer in spotlight as potential Biden backups

Of course, if Biden were to abandon plans for a second term Harris isn’t guaranteed the nomination because she is vice president. She's also hardly the only name people float as viable backup options, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. 

On X, formerly known as Twitter, Johanna Maska, a senior Democratic operative who was very loyal to Obama and Biden said Friday it was time for Biden to step aside. But she noticeably didn't include Harris in her list of potential alternatives.

RealClearPolling averages show that limited surveys suggest that Harris has an even bigger disadvantage than Biden if she were to run against Trump. The former president leads Harris by 6.6 percentage points, with 49.3 percent support to the Democrat's 42.7 percent. RealClearPolling's averages show Trump ahead of Biden by just 1.5 points, with 46.6 percent to the president's 45.1 percent.

Those polls were on Trump's mind Friday during the presumptive GOP nominee's first post-debate rally in Chesapeake, Va. There, he lumped Harris and former First Lady Michelle Obama into a group of possible replacements before noting, "It's hard to believe, but 'Crooked Joe Biden' polls better than those people."

Harris would have 'Trump for lunch'

Regardless of the names pundits speculate or lawmakers whisper about, the party could find it difficult to bypass the sitting vice president in favor of an untested candidate, said Bowdoin College government professor Andrew Rudalevige.

"It's kind of weird to jump over her for a bunch of people who have not been vetted on a national ticket. You know also, not for nothing, obviously, she's a woman of color, and women of color are the most energetic and loyal part of the Democratic Party base, and to skip over her for a Gavin Newsom or a white male I think would be pretty off putting to the parts of the base that the ticket would need most to energize," he said.

Still, Harris would need to quickly find a message that could resonate with voters. In the 2020 election cycle, Harris' presidential campaign flamed out before even getting through with 2019.

"That's the tough part, right?" Rudalevige said. "It can't simply be that you are more coherent."

Just over two weeks after the Democratic National Convention in late August, the two major party nominees are scheduled to meet again for the second, and last, presidential debate. And in that moment, the difference between Biden and Harris would be particularly clear.

Boston University Communications Professor Tammy Vigil, an expert on political rhetoric, said Harris' experience as a former prosecutor and San Francisco district attorney would be invaluable should she end up being the nominee who is debating a rival who has been impeached twice, indicted four times and convicted once.

"She would probably have Trump for lunch. She would definitely be able to hold him to account a lot more effectively then I think Biden was able to last night," Vigil said. "I think she has the skill sets and the experience to be able to be more effective at calling out Donald Trump's false statements and also then pivoting into the information that she wants to give."

Reporter Riley Beggin and Kenneth Tran in Washington contributed to this report.